Published in a peer-reviewed journal
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)—features and forensic considerations
Roger Byard, Marianne Tiemensma, Michael E. Buckland, Robert Vink. 2023. Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology.
Summary
A commentary describing CTE pathology, autopsy examination, and assessment of repetitive head-trauma histories.
What the work reports
- The authors describe CTE as a degenerative brain condition and state that its only known cause is repeated blunt head trauma.
- They describe the finding that defines CTE under the microscope: abnormal tau protein in nerve cells around small blood vessels deep in the folds of the brain’s surface.
- They recommend that death investigations ask about past head trauma, including contact sport, and that the brain be examined and sampled so cases are not missed. They describe tau staining of three areas of the outer brain as a useful screen.
Limits to keep in mind
- A commentary. It reports no new participant data.
- Its scope is contact sport and other head-trauma histories in general, not boxing, MMA or bare-knuckle boxing in particular.
- It concerns diagnosis by examining the brain after death.
Publication status
Published in a peer-reviewed journal. Commentary in Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology.
No correction or retraction notice was found in Crossref, PubMed or Scite when this record was checked.
Rights
CC BY 4.0. Open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The summary on this page is FMRI’s own wording. No text or figure from the article is reproduced here. Licence terms.
FMRI’s role
None. This is external research by the authors and institutions named. FMRI lists it and summarizes it in its own words.
See the source record for the authors' funding and disclosures.